4.5. Supradialectal communities

Close contacts within a West Indo-European group (formed by Italic, Celtic, and Germanic), supposed to derive from a dialect continuum spanning Pan-European trade contacts during the Bronze Age, may be found in certain common traits. Most likely, because there were no closer contacts between Germanic and Celtic, or between Germanic and Italic, these common traits are in fact North-West Indo-European features that did not survive in Balto-Slavic, the most divergent dialect of the group, probably partly isolated early in close contact with Palaeo-Balkan and Uralic languages (see §4.13. Balto-Slavic).

One common feature of the three dialects is the merge of *ku̯→kw, usually considered a parallel development in ‘centum’ languages, because it is also found e.g. in Gk. hippos. Nevertheless, since it is not found in Lusitanian, it may be posited as a common development, or one due to areal influence.

Shared folk tales among the three dialects (da Silva and Tehrani 2016) include “The Treasures of the Giant” (MFTD 328), whereby a boy or hero sets out to steal from a giant (a variant is Jack and the Beanstalk); and “The Animal Bride” (MTFD 402), where the youngest of three brothers succeeds best in the quests set by his father, bringing the best cloth, the most beautiful bride, etc., and the mouse (cat) who has helped him changes herself into a beautiful maiden.

· WIE *rēgs ‘king, ruler’, cf. Ita. *rēks, Cel. *rīgs, Gmc. *rekaz (cf. ON -rekr, -reki), also in derivative fem. *rēgni̯ā ‘queen’, cf. Ita. *rēginā, Cel. *rīganī, and *rēg(i)i̯o-, ‘royal, mighty, cf. Cel. *rīgi̯o (and as a loan in Gmc. *rīks, *rīkii̯a-). They continue a Late PIE concept, being evident in PII f. *rā́ȷ́niā; PII m. *rā́ȷ́ān (<*rēgon-, also found in Bret. rīgon) is usually explained as a back-formation from the feminine form in *-n, because the West IE form is a root noun and thus believed to be ancient. However, this form is not found outside West Indo-European.

· WIE *oitos m. ‘oath’, cf. Cel. *oito- behind OIr. oeth, and Gmc. *aiϑa. Given the close formal and semantic agreement, it is unlikely that the formation goes back to PIE only to surface in these two neighbouring branches independently, so it is likely to have arisen in a shared cultural zone with similar legal traditions (Kroonen 2013).

The main reason for a proposed Italo-Celtic subgroup is the shared innovations of Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic, which are unusual enough not to have been parallel developments, but rather reflect an early linguistic unity.

Common morphological developments include, from more to less likely to be dated to a common period of genetic relationship (Zair 2018):

· Morphological innovation:

o Superlative in *-is-m̥mo-, apart from the inherited *-t-m̥mo.

o Reinterpretation of *-ī as an o-stem genitive, even though it alternates with other gen. sg. ending (viz. *-osi̯o), is supported to stem from a common trunk by its presence in Venetic and Messapic.

o Passive ending 1pl. *-mor, 3.pl. *-ntro.

o The so-called “-ā- subjunctives”, which have been reinterpreted (and thus their origin obscured) later in the different dialects.

o i-stemisation of the suffix *-stħo- (Weiss 2017).

· Shared lexemes, of which those unique to both are few. The most significant are:

The dozens of shared words between Latin and Celtic come usually from late loans—similar to the shared vocabulary between Germanic and Baltic, and Germanic and Slavic (see below)—dating to the time of the Roman expansion. The best description of the group is thus probably still that of a “drowned” subgroup, sharing “a rather short period of common development followed by a long period of divergence” (Cowgill 1970). The early estimates for Proto-Italic or Proto-Italo-Venetic and Proto-Celtic languages (see below) put this community most likely in the centuries around the turn of the 3rd–2nd millennium BC.

Based on shared vocabulary of Indo-European and non-Indo-European origin (and on the lack of closer genetic relationship within the NWIE group), it has been proposed that Germanic and Balto-Slavic may have shared a common Indo-European substratum with strong non-Indo-European influence (Kortlandt 2016).

This hypothetic Indo-European language without known descendants, based on the phonetic and morphological similarities, may be identified with a North-West Indo-European branch influencing both Pre-Germanic and Pre-Balto-Slavic rather early, before the early satemisation trend in Balto-Slavic, because no traces of the long proposed CentumIEsubstrate[xvi] of Balto-Slavic can be found (Hyllested 2007). A Northern European language could thus be tentatively identified with the language of early vangard Yamna migrants from Hungary who settled into the Saxony-Anhalt region, by then dominated by the Corded Ware culture.

These pioneer settlers of the Northern European Lowlands were later replaced by East Bell Beakers migrating northwards, as the most likely source of both, a Pre-Germanic (in Scandinavia) and a Pre-Balto-Slavic community (in central-east Europe). Given the close contacts through the Northern Plains during the Neolithic, and the Pan-European influence of Únětice in the north during its classic period—apart from close contacts of cultures around the Baltic during the Bronze Age—it could be proposed that it was a third, neighbouring language from Únětice which influenced both.

Whichever the actual nature of the Northern European substratum, it could have been the source of:

· Common lexica of Indo-European origin found in Germanic and Baltic, and to some extent in Slavic, limited to social phenomena, and especially to technical terms for wooden tools and utensils, as described by Stang (1972). His 68 compiled isoglosses were reduced to 25 by Nepokupnij (2000)[xvii]. Well-known examples of Germanic–Balto-Slavic correspondances include (Dini 2018):

· Northern European subsitution of *-bh- endings for *-m-. Due to their consistent vocalism, it is likely that the original NWIE endings in *-bh- (see above §3.2.2. North-West Indo-European evolution) underwent a reinterpretation to *-m- in Germanic and Balto-Slavic.

o It is usually interpreted[xviii] as a substitution based on the adverbial suffix in *-m- (cf. Lat. ill-im ‘from there’; HLuw. abl-instr. pron zin ‘from/with this’), therefore replacing an old adverbial ending (in *-bhi-) for another (Lundquist 2018); compare also Lith. raĩbas/ raĩmas, ‘varied’.

o However, it seems likely that this change of an already grammaticalised case ending in two different dialects would have been helped by certain regional features. Northern European, as the source of this common trait, could have undergone the change *-bh- → *-m- due to a simple sporadic phonetic change, similar to the commonly assumed for Mongolian or Tungusic *b- → *m(Street 1983). This change may be also supported by:

§ a phonetic substrate (assuming e.g. an underlying nonobstruent stop that alternated with other nasal nonobstruents);

§ the influence of a substrate language with similar oblique cases;

§ or both.

o Uralic languages (from Early Proto-Uralic to Proto-Finno-Samic) are known for their lack of voiced and aspirated bilabial and velar stops, which would compel their speakers to adopt *-bh- as a different but similar (i.e. bilabial) phoneme; and Uralic oblique cases and most dialectally innovated paradigms were usually made in nasals (cf. LPU acc. *-m, gen. *-n, loc. *-nV, dat-lat. in *-n or *-ń⁠). All this could suggest that Northern European was heavily influenced initially by Uralic or a closely related language. Interesting in this respect may also be the example of Livonian dative in -n, only partially stemming from the Uralic genitive in *-n, and which has strong links to the Latvian dative in *-m- (Seržant 2015).

· Generalisation of mediopassive endings in *-i and specialisation of the mediopassive system, in contrast with the the original alternation of endings in *-i (middle voice) and *-r (impersonal–passive), the latter surviving in frozen remains possibly up to Proto-Slavic, e.g. in the suffix -žĭdo ‘each, every, everyone’ (cf. Russ. káždyj, Pol. kazdy), which seems to reflect an archaic impersonal / middle-passive ending from PBSl. *-ghido-r (Majer 2012). Supporting this adoption of a substrate proto-middle, later diverging in both branches, it has been suggested that n-infix athematic intransitive change-of-state verbs shared by Germanic and Balto-Slavic developed from the proto-middle through the 3sg. ending *-e (Watkins 1969; Jasanoff 1978; Darden 1996, 2018).

· Witness to this intermediate substrate may also be other typological features common to Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Uralic, and Northern Eurasian languages (Klesment et al. 2003), although many are constrained to Balto-Slavic and Uralic, which developed in neighbouring territories.

· The bear taboo seems to affect Indo-European languages with a close relationship with Uralic peoples and culture, making them replace the inherited *ŕ̥tkos ‘bear’ with epithets: so e.g. Germanic *beran- ‘the brown one’ (cf. Lith. bė́ras, Ltv. bērs ‘brown’); Slavic medv-ědĭ ‘honey-eater’, which has a parallel in OInd. madhv-ád (but cf. common PII ŕ̥ĉšas ‘bear’, absent in Slavic); and OPru. clokis, Lith. lokỹs, Ltv. lākis, from Proto-Baltic *talk-, *tlkak- hence ‘trampler, stomper, pounder’ (the IE root is conserved in Lith. irštvà ‘bear-den’). This taboo has a parallell in Finno-Ugric languages: compare PF *karhu, from *karheda ‘rough, coarse’; PFP from PU *oča ‘dam net, enclosure’, possibly by association to the asterism—and mythical origin from—Big Dipper (cf. PF *otava, Saami oahci, oahtse, Permian oš); in Ob-Ugric languages the bear is the most sacred and the most feared animal, and is called ‘the old one of the forest’, ‘the little idol’, ‘the holy beast’, etc. (Cushing 1977).

· Shared folk tales among Eastern Baltic cultures across the Baltic Sea, and also through East European cultures in the Forest Zone, also point to strong interaction between Germanic and Finno-Samic, and between Balto-Slavic and Finno-Permic populations (Bortolini et al. 2017).

All these innovative traits and cultural similarities could have also been aquired through intense Bronze Age contacts between Palaeo-Germanic peoples from Scandinavia and Pre-Balto-Slavic peoples from Central-East Europe through the Northern European Lowlands and the Baltic Sea, without a need to propose a third, intermediate language. This is also supported by the closer lexical and morphological influence between Germanic and Baltic languages, product of later contacts in the same regions. Interesting in this regard are a certain number of borrowings from late Palaeo-Germanic into Proto-Fennic and Proto-Slavic (see below §4.13.2.1. Proto-Germanic loanwords in Slavic and Finnic).